Presidents with military experience

[nancylebov]

This was on facebook. I'm reposting it here because I definitely want to be able to find it again, and also because I think I should be doing more on DW/LJ.

*****

Al Lock posted in response to my question:

Nancy Lebovitz "I've asked elsewhere about whether presidents with military experience make better military decisions, and never gotten an answer."

I'll give you an answer from a historian's point of view (not everyone may agree with me, but still...).

George Washington had more military experience than the 4 Presidents who followed him combined... and yet, only he had to deploy military forces to deal with rebellion.

Ulysses S. Grant arguably made some of the worst military decisions in US history in how he dealt with the Sioux. He was very, very experienced in military matters, but I'd say that pretty much all the Presidents who followed him made better military decisions regarding the various tribes.

Dwight Eisenhower was probably the most educated and experienced General to ever reside in the White House. He is also responsible for the massive increase in the various intelligence agencies and their activities worldwide.

JFK had military experience - combat - and took us to the brink of nuclear war, as well as getting us into Vietnam.

LBJ had very limited military experience (the story about his Silver Star is enlightening) - made horrible decisions throughout Vietnam.

Jimmy Carter was a Navy Commander. Submariner. Worst CinC in my service era.

Ronald Reagan made movies while he was in the military. Important stuff, but not really combat or even overseas duty. Best CinC in my service era.

GWH Bush was a naval aviator. Shot down at the Battle of Midway. Honestly? Middle of the road.

Bill Clinton had no experience and made some absolutely horrible decisions early - but he did learn from them.

Being President is its own skill set. I don't think military service has as much to do with being good or bad (even as related to military decisions) as the right mindset to challenge assumptions and make smart, balanced decisions.

Comments

[madfilkentist]

That suggests to me that presidents with military experience are more restrained than ones without it. Maybe it's because they have a better idea of what war is really about. Eisenhower invented the term "military-industrial complex." We got into the War of 1812 under Madison, the Mexican War under Polk, the Civil War under Lincoln, WWI under Wilson, WWII under FDR, and Korea under Truman, none of whom are listed there. (Those are the ones I can name without peeking; JFK was already mentioned.)

[zenlizard]

>George Washington had more military experience than the 4 Presidents who followed him combined... and yet, only he had to deploy military forces to deal with rebellion.


Um,what?

[madfilkentist]

What comes to mind first is the whisky (tax) rebellion of 1794.

[ndrosen]

As I recall, Truman did have experience fighting in World War One, as an artillery officer.

[calimac]

Not sure what you mean by Reagan as "best CinC". He presided over some military disasters, like the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings. He sent Rumsfeld to help Saddam. IranContra was at least arguably military in nature. The invasion of Grenada was counted a success because it accomplished its mission, but its mission was the worst imperial overreach since Vietnam.

I presume either you don't think these things were so bad, or other things outweigh them, or else "best" means "least bad."

[marahmarie]

What is a CinC (just to help me put what you've said into its proper context)?

[ndrosen]

Commander in Chief.

[osewalrus]

This is an extraordinarily poor analysis, but it reflects the difficulty of the question. What do we mean by military decisions?

Also, it is worth noting that the role of the President in his capacity as "Commander in Chief" has varied a tremendous amount over the course of the presidency.

Let us consider George Washington for a brief example of the problems with the above analysis. What are we considering a "military decision" and how do we evaluate its success? To my mind, far more telling to anything remotely like a military decision by Washington was is decision to remain neutral in the war between England and France.

The Whiskey Rebellion was not a military decision or a result of a military decision, and one my argue that its relatively bloodless nature and aftermath were a signal of great success. The Whiskey Rebellion was a response to Congress' imposition of a tax on whiskey to raise federal funds (we had no income tax). Pennsylvania farmers rebelled -- although even the use of the term "rebel" is questionable. What they really did was riot, refuse to pay the tax, assault the federal tax collector and burn down his office.

And what Washington did (delegating to Hamilton for a variety of reasons, including that it was basically a revenue matter and did not fall under the purview of the Secretary of State), was to invoke the provision of the Constitution to raise the state militia under federal authority. In modern terms, it would roughly be the equivalent of calling in the National Guard. Hamilton opted for "shock and awe" to suppress the rebellion before it spread. He raised several thousand militia men and marched into the town that was the center of the rebellion. The rebellion melted away and Hamilton arrested the leaders -- who subsequently pardoned by Washington.

Evaluating this episode requires understanding that the United State government was new, its legitimacy was still up in the air, and lots of people (including some of those running it, like Hamilton) were skeptical it would work. The tension between the Federalists (who were running the government at the time) and Anti-Federalist state's rights people was still very real. Additionally, we need to understand just how very different communications and logistics were, and how very different the concept of "military" and "military intervention" were. Heck, the U.S. didn't even have a standing army. Washington had to call in the Pennsylvania militia.

(If you want some insight into how the folks who wrote and ratified the Second Amendment were thinking, studying the Whisky rebellion is a good place to start. The roll of the "well regulated militia" at the time of ratification was still a major deal -- and giving Congress the power to create and maintain a standing army was one of the really controversial pieces of the Constitution.)

So I would personally call Washington's handling of the Whisky Rebellion a major success, informed by his military experience of when to exercise both power and restraint. But certainly the fact that Washington had to invoke the militia can hardly be taken as a sign of bad decision making. To argue in a single sentence that the fact of the Whisky Rebellion *itself* indicates bad decision making is foolish.

But part of the problem is the vagueness of the question. What kinds of decisions? In the conduct of the war? In decisions to go to war? As compared to what alternative? Was Kennedy's handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis brilliant because it worked and beat back the proliferation of nuclear missile bases by both sides (we quietly withdrew our missiles from Turkey afterwards to ease tensions)? A failure because it involved brinksmanship? Eisenhower made preventing wars of aggression a major cornerstone of his foreign policy precisely because of his experience in WWII. This had huge consequences for reining in England, France and Israel in 1956, and keeping the US out of the decolonialization of Europe and Asia. But he also presided over the rise of what Eisenhower himself would name "the military industrial complex" as necessary to deter the threat of the Soviet Union.

Good decisions? Bad decisions? Certainly not to be summarized in a handful of sentences.

[nancylebov]

Thank you for the details.

There seem to be a lot of people who want a president with military expericence, and I was looking for evidence of whether military experience actually matters. I *think* the answer is that it's not an important criterion.